ID the Future Intelligent Design, Evolution, and Science Podcast
Topic

Fossils

IDTF Stephen Meyer Ben Shapiro 2019 Interview Podcast Post Graphic

Stephen Meyer and Ben Shapiro Talk Intelligent Design

On this ID The Future, we bring you the first half of Daily Wire host Ben Shapiro’s 2019 interview with philosopher of science Dr. Stephen Meyer on The Ben Shapiro Sunday Special. This exchange happened five years ago now, and we thought it was a good time to put it out there again for those who may not have heard it yet or don’t remember it. Dr. Meyer considers this one of the best interviews he’s done on the subject of his second solo book Darwin’s Doubt. Shapiro was very well-prepared and asked great questions, resulting in a thought-provoking and thoroughly engaging hour-long conversation. We’ve got the first half of it for you today, followed by the concluding half in Read More ›

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creatures of the Cambrian period, underwater scene with Anomalocaris, Opabinia, Hallucigenia, Pirania and Dinomischus (3d science illustration)

Why Intelligent Design Best Explains the Fossil Record Data

The fossil record reveals sudden explosions of new life forms followed by long periods of stasis. Is this evidence to be expected from a gradual Darwinian model? On this episode of ID The Future, host Eric Anderson talks with Casey Luskin on location at this year’s Conference on Engineering and Living Systems (CELS). Luskin discusses three different models of the fossil record - the gradual descent model, the punctuated equilibrium model, and the explosion model. He explains why gradual Darwinian models are built on a lack of data and cannot adequately explain the patterns revealed in the record. He also shows that the sudden appearance of complex organisms and long periods of non-change are exactly what we would expect to find from a design perspective. "These organisms...are designed to change within limits," says Luskin, "and that's why we see stasis." Indeed, the fossil record is consistent with the engineering-based theory of bounded adaptation, the idea that organisms are deeply designed, purposeful, and capable of adapting within their operating parameters. It's an intriguing new way to look at the history of life on earth. Says Luskin, "The only way you're going to be able to generate all the information needed to yield an organism that's alive and functional all at once is through an intelligent cause." Don't miss this intriguing conversation! Casey Luskin holds a PhD in Geology from the University of Johannesburg, where he specialized in paleomagnetism and the early plate tectonic history of South Africa. He serves as Associate Director of Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. Want to dive deeper into the fascinating explosions of plant and animal life in the geologic record? Luskin recommends reading a chapter by Stephen C. Meyer and Gunter Bechly (Chapter 10) on the topic, in Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Critique. Available here: https://www.discovery.org/b/theistic-evolution/ Read More ›
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Debunked Transitional Fossils Just the Tip of the Iceberg

On today’s ID the Future Casey Luskin hosts distinguished German paleontologist Günter Bechly to discuss Bechly’s essay in the recent Harvest House anthology, The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith: Exploring the Ultimate Questions About Life and the Cosmos. Darwinian evolution predicts a gradually branching tree of living forms, with one form shading into another over long periods of evolution, with each transitional step almost too modest to notice. Does the fossil record suggest such a pattern? Quite the opposite, Bechly says. Instead the pattern of the fossil record is consistently one of sudden appearance, and evolutionists have yet to successfully construct a single robustly populated series of gradually transitioning fossils that move chronologically from one form to a distinctly different Read More ›

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Namacalathus. Exhibit in the Redpath Museum, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; public domain image.

A Paleontologist Buries Another Proposed Cambrian Precursor

On this ID the Future, German paleontologist Günter Bechly explains why the Precambrian fossil Namacalathus fails as a transitional precursor to the Cambrian explosion. Darwinists want to find transitional precursors to the Cambrian animals to minimize how poorly the Cambrian explosion fits with Darwinism’s story of a gradual evolutionary development. Dr. Bechly gives other examples of such efforts as well and shows how each fails. As he says, the more we learn about the Cambrian and Precambrian, the more dramatic the Cambrian explosion appears and the poorer it fits with modern evolutionary theory. As he also notes, the points he makes in this episode have been made by mainstream evolutionary paleontologists. He differs only in stepping back from the larger pattern Read More ›

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Wikipedia Throws Günter Bechly Down the Orwellian Memory Hole

On this episode of ID The Future, Robert Crowther talks with paleontologist Dr. Günter Bechly about his entry on Wikipedia which was created in 2012 and suspiciously disappeared in 2015 when he started supporting Intelligent Design. An eminent paleontologist, Bechly was curator of the State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart, Germany and had numerous species as well as even a family named after him, a high honor in the field. Crowther and Bechly go over the specious reasons given by Wikipedia for Bechly’s deletion, revealing the ideological and authoritarian nature of some the editors at Wikipedia.

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On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us, pt. 4

On this episode of ID the Future, hear more of Casey Luskin’s recent talk at a recent Science and Human Origins conference. Casey discusses why the fossil evidence doesn’t support the claim that humans evolved from ape-like precursors.

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On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us, pt. 3

On this episode of ID the Future, hear more of Casey Luskin’s recent talk at a recent Science and Human Origins conference. Casey discusses why the fossil evidence doesn’t support the claim that humans evolved from ape-like precursors.

Read More ›
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On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us, pt. 2

On this episode of ID the Future, hear more of Casey Luskin’s recent talk at a recent Science and Human Origins conference. Casey discusses why the fossil evidence doesn’t support the claim that humans evolved from ape-like precursors.

Read More ›
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On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us

On this episode of ID the Future, hear a clip of Casey Luskin speaking at a recent Science and Human Origins conference. Casey discusses why the fossil evidence doesn’t support the claim that humans evolved from ape-like precursors.

Read More ›
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An Ocean Apart: New Fossils Challenge Common Ancestry

On this episode of ID the Future, David Boze interviews Casey Luskin about recently discovered fossils that have inspired Darwinists to develop wild and speculative explanations.

Fossils of the Hoatzin bird have previously been found exclusively in South America, but were recently uncovered in Africa — clear on the other side of the Atlantic. As Darwinists struggle to fit the discovery of these fossils into their doctrine of common descent, it becomes apparent that regardless of what new evidence suggests, they will refuse to allow common ancestry to be challenged. Listen in as Boze and Luskin reveal the tendency of Darwinists to pursue PR campaigns rather than scientific inquiry.

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